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After spending the winter strategizing outreach efforts and speaking at conferences, it all comes to fruition as we welcome the new class of summer interns and visitors who stroll through our campus with wonder. This summer, we also hosted our first ever all-Employee Resource Group (ERG) retreat. The retreat pushed us to think of new paradigms—radical prioritization vs. multi-tasking, change vs. transformation, and collectivism through intersectionality vs. individualism.
Our learning and development, recognitions (this July marks the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act), and cultural offerings are the essence of our organizational culture—the organizational culture that our principal investigators should cite to when developing their Promoting Inclusive and Equitable Research (PIER) Plans.
An organization’s DEI+ Office and ERGs can be tremendous partners to the mission. During a recent conversation that I facilitated for the HEP Early Career Award Network Summer 2023 Workshop, I shared a mentoring map with the attendees to help delineate the multiple mentors that we all need. While the attendees were comfortable with traversing the left side of the map, I led a discussion about the critical aspects of the right side of the map and strategies that STEM professionals can use to find the mentors and sponsors who are essential to an early career scientist’s success.
In my next PIER planning session, we will discuss mentoring within the context of micro-aggressions with Dr. Ayodele Thomas, the first African American woman to earn an engineering PhD from Stanford University. To attend, please feel free to reach out to lboyd@slac.stanford.edu to receive the meeting invitation.
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